New game? Suit2Kill

So I'm over at Pauma in SoCal and noticed a game I never heard of, and doesn't generate any hits at WoV/WoO: Suit2Kill.

Can't paste a link properly since I'm on my phone, but based on the site and what I picked up from looking at the table, the dealer gets one card, you get four cards. You place an ante and up to a 3x wager. The object is to have a card that matches the suit of the dealer and is of a higher value. (ibngc.biz)

My gut instinct on this is to run for the hills-- seems like it'll have high-ish variance and you'll want to go in on hands based on a sliding scale of number of suits vs strength of suits.

Anybody else care to weigh in?

Edit: Not quite an ante; that bet's always live, regardless if you choose to raise. Makes it a bit kinder than I thought.

I think something is Missing from your description. If the player really gets 4 cards and the dealer only gets 1, the player would have a huge edge I would think.

That surprises me. That's why the. Math guys get the big bucks:-)

Nope, it's 4-1. Somebody finally sat down to play. Lost 6 hands straight, but more or less broke even on the sides. Did not have a single hand that had a card that matched the suit and had a higher value.

Quote: Venthus

Nope, it's 4-1. Somebody finally sat down to play. Lost 6 hands straight, but more or less broke even on the sides. Did not have a single hand that had a card that matched the suit and had a higher value.

Well you have to think about it this way:

Your strongest starting hands (hands with 4 different suits) will only happen (39/51)*(26/50)*(13/49) = 10.55% of the time.

deleted

Oh, and just to mess things up more-- player and dealer draw from the same deck and there's a side bet that uses a second hand of 4, so there's a minimum of 9 cards drawn per hand. VERY beatable if you can persuade them to deal face up...

Just got back to a computer; here's some more details:

There's 4 spots for bets labelled Pairs Up, Aim, Fire, Reload; 5$ minimum for each spot.
Pairs Up is a sidebet on your own hand for four card poker hands pairs or better. (I believe the highest was AAAA, at 100:1. Second highest was a royal.)
Aim is the basic bet and placed before cards are dealt.
Fire is optional, 1x-3x your Aim bet, and is placed after cards are dealt (and your own cards are viewed).
Reload is placed after cards are dealt and is a combination of Aim/Pairs Up (no 'Fire') for an extra hand. Pay table is a little lower here, with AAAA being 65:1, I think. This is a single hand that is shared amongst the table.

Aim is required and pays 1:1. Aim is always resolved 'normally' regardless of other bets.
Fire is optional and pays 1:1.
Pairs Up has a pay table that I can't give details on, but includes pretty much every 4 card poker hand you'd expect.
Reload pays 1:1 on the main game, and a reduced Pairs Up pay table. It's possible to lose the Reload-MainGame and win the Reload-PairsUp.

After all bets are placed, the dealer opens their card, then the player hand. Pairs Up, Aim, and Fire bets are resolved. Player hands are collected. The Reload hand is opened. Reload bets are resolved.

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Out of the few hands that I saw, winning the main game is brutal, but recovering on the side bets are definitely possible. No idea if that was an anomaly though.

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(This is a response to a PM I received:)

There was only one person playing, so I can't say anything about the order, but I *think* it was:

4 cards to the player
4 cards for the "reload" sidebet.
4(?) cards for the dealer, of which only the top one was used
Remaining cards discharged.

The shuffler did not appear to be anything unusual; I want to say it resembled the typical pai gow shuffler, where the card input/output bays are more or less flush with the surface of the table, with the shuffling mechanism being a large rounded bit that sticks off the edge.

Yuck on the main game! 15% house edge (if my math is correct). Just a 37.7% win rate on an even money type is no good. Maybe the side bets have a player edge to offset this, but I would need a pay table to check.

I'll try to get a copy of the paytable next time I'm over there.

Does your 15% house edge include the ability to raise to 3x your bet on a good hand ('Fire'), or is that just the base 'Aim' bet?

Quote: miplet

Yuck on the main game! 15% house edge (if my math is correct). Just a 37.7% win rate on an even money type is no good. Maybe the side bets have a player edge to offset this, but I would need a pay table to check.

What's the optimal main game strategy (other than the obvious "don't play")?

Quote: Venthus

I'll try to get a copy of the paytable next time I'm over there.

Does your 15% house edge include the ability to raise to 3x your bet on a good hand ('Fire'), or is that just the base 'Aim' bet?

Yes it includes firing. You "fire" on 20.5% of the hands. 1.61 average bet. Element of Risk 9.31%.

Outcome	Fires	Pays	Combinations	Return
Wins	Yes	4	1536444	0.4729411765
Wins	No	1	3365544	0.2589915966
Loses	No	-1	6969144	-0.536302521
Loses	Yes	-4	1123668	-0.3458823529
Total			12994800	-0.1502521008

Quote: AxiomOfChoice

What's the optimal main game strategy (other than the obvious "don't play")?

Count how may cards the dealer will have that you will beat. 24 is 0 ev. (I "Fire" in my pay tables.) "Fire" x3 if it is more than 24.

Quote: miplet

Count how may cards the dealer will have that you will beat. 24 is 0 ev. (I "Fire" in my pay tables.) "Fire" x3 if it is more than 24.

Ok, now I feel stupid.

Pretty interesting game. Nice job by the inventor in coming up with something a little different.


ZCore13

Quote: Zcore13

Pretty interesting game. Nice job by the inventor in coming up with something a little different.


ZCore13

I like the game idea, but it's gonna easily slaughter the sheep even if they play optimally.

Shameless modifying of miplet's data ahead. The real drawback is the fire bet would need offer a 7X raise to make the house edge "acceptable" (2.32%), or some other rule change.

Dealer always pushes on an Ace (a qualifying rule players will actually love!) and raising the fire bet to a 4X raise makes it 4.16% I think, and 5X would be 0.98% house edge.

Even knowing that it's optimal, the idea of putting down 11 units on a single hand (assuming you're like a normal player, also betting the sides) makes me kind of twitchy. I think most people would feel that way too, unless you're one of those people who actually takes advantage of 1000x odds craps... =P